Southwest Grounds Planes for Inspections
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
DALLAS — Southwest Airlines Co. canceled flights yesterday and temporarily grounded 43 planes to examine if they were sound enough to carry passengers, the latest twist in the low-cost carrier’s saga of missed safety inspections and civil penalties.
The groundings affected about 8% of Southwest’s fleet, and came as the airline faces a $10.2 million civil penalty for continuing to fly nearly 50 planes that hadn’t been inspected for cracks in their fuselages.
Southwest shares fell more than 9% before closing down 7.3%.
Since the Federal Aviation Administration announced the penalty last week, Southwest has endured a steady drip of bad publicity, which is unusual for the nation’s most consistently profitable carrier and one that has never had an accident that killed passengers or crew members.
Yesterday, word filtered out that the airline had taken 38 planes out of service, along with five others that were already in hangars undergoing routine maintenance. That’s about 8% of Southwest’s fleet.
